


I Feel Like We Can't Go Through Another Of Those Terrible Times

by itsokaybabytheresnoexit



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Adult Hermione Granger, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bellamione - Freeform, Bellatrix Black Lestrange Lives, Canon Lesbian Relationship, Chaos, Discord: Bellamione Cult, Duelling, Everyone Has Issues, Everyone Is Gay, F/F, F/M, Female-Centric, I Don't Even Know, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Lesbian Sex, Magic, Multi, POV Bellatrix Black Lestrange, Plot, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, Secrets, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Teacher Hermione Granger, Tumblr, Useless Lesbians, Vaginal Sex, What Was I Thinking?, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:48:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 18,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27262999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsokaybabytheresnoexit/pseuds/itsokaybabytheresnoexit
Summary: Bellatrix Black has survived the war, and has been hired to teach Defence Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts School. She begins to develop feelings for her co-teacher and personal guardian Hermione Granger, and then Chaos happens. Slow burn.
Relationships: Bellatrix Black Lestrange & Narcissa Black Malfoy & Andromeda Black Tonks, Bellatrix Black Lestrange/Rodolphus Lestrange, Bellatrix Black Lestrange/Tom Riddle, Bellatrix Black Lestrange/Voldemort, Hermione Granger/Bellatrix Black Lestrange, Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy, Hermione Granger/Harry Potter, Hermione Granger/Harry Potter/Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger/Minerva McGonagall, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Sirius Black/Bellatrix Black Lestrange
Comments: 5
Kudos: 66





	1. Chapter 1

Bellatrix still flinches at the sound of His name. It has become less noticeable as the years have passed, but it is still undoubtedly there; her eyelashes tremble, ever so slightly, her breath is sucked in for one fraction of a second. She can see it coming, now. She expects it, when certain people talk, she can see it that they are about to say it- the name she would not dare think a few years  
back. Dumbledore’s Army, The Order, they toss His name around to highlight their victory. And children, too. When she walks in the street, sometimes, when she keeps her head particularly low so that most won’t recognise her. Some instances stick out. In an elevator, in the ministry.

“Mommy, will we go have ice-cream afterwards?” The child tugs at her sleeve. His eyes are a lovely shade of blue.

“No, sweetie.” The mother is nervous. She glances at Bellatrix’s shoes, apologetically- she does not dare do anything more.

“But I want to”

“No, honey. Be quiet now.” She is in her thirties, the dark witch thinks, old enough to have felt the horrors of his second uprising.

“Why? Why?” The child jumps up and down and frowns. Then, he taunts: “Why, mommy? Are you afraid?” He laughs: “Is Voldemort going to be there?” The mother pales, her voice cracks up.

“Oh, Joseph, I wish you’d shut up!” She cries, hoarsely. The elevator goes straight up to floor eleven, and it’s not stopping anytime soon. “I’m sorry, I’m really sorry,” says the mother, hand shaking as she grasps her son’s shoulder. “He shouldn’t be saying all that, I’m very sorry,” her gaze keeps flickering at her shoes, at the mirror, at the silver buttons.

“Mommy, you’re hurting me,” whines the boy. Her knuckles have turned white. Bellatrix decides to put her out of her misery.

“It’s quite alright, really. He’s only a child. He cannot know,” she offers. The young woman looks up, surprised. At her face, first, very briefly, and then right at her hands, where a pair of thin, silver bracelets reside, tight around the skin of her wrists. “They’re still in place, don’t worry,” she smiles. The mother laughs nervously.

“Of course they are, how silly of me.” Silence. The elevator goes up another two floors. “Are they uncomfortable?”

“What?”

“The cuffs. I’ve always wondered- from the pictures” (she says pictures, not wanted posters, not warning fliers, Bellatrix notices) “I’ve always seen them and wondered, how they feel, if they’re heavy or anything.” A beat. “Of course that could be a private question, I didn’t mean to-“

“They’re alright. Like tight bracelets. But you get used to them soon enough.”

Ding!  
Floor Eleven.

The mother grabs the child and walks out, smiling politely as goodbye. Bellatrix doesn’t do anything. She thinks they keep adding floors to these blasted places.

Then, silence. Then,  
Ding!  
Floor Thirteen! Then,

“Miss Black, always a pleasure to see you.” The prime-minister’s office is as absolutely impersonal and unused as she remembered it. Briefly, she considers the possibility of a hidden office, like He had. An office inside the office, some strange space that was entirely personal, real, secret.

“Always so formal, Shacklebolt.” She is tired. “Why did you make me come all the way up here?”

“We have a much nicer view, you’ll find.” Bellatrix laughs- scoffs, rather. Witty comebacks tend to loose their touch when you get older. “But...that is not the only reason. You have been working with the Aurors for nine years, if my memory doesn’t fail me.”

Bellatrix considers this. The first three years, which were hell. Then, the rest, where they did not scream at her, did not cower in fear, simply stood; methodically; casting one spell after another as she deflected them; and then asking her about tactics; glancing at her; wondering if she really was that good at duelling; that effective; that deadly.

Sometimes, when the weather was cold enough for nostalgia, she’d satisfy their curiosity, pull up some memory of some battle and let it blow over the room.

She watched their eyes, she watched them watching her, how she twisted around, how the dark spells rolled off her wand, how her eyes glistened with madness and focus, how the enemies fell around her, how easily she won.

“That, rookies, is what you’ll be facing. Well, a little worse for wear, and less talented. None of those still hiding are or ever were...how do I say it...on my level.”

The Aurors-in-training would clap, sometimes. And her supervisor would say, “Now, now, we should not encourage violence.” And she could see it, the next day, the next month, the way they stared at her differently. Unquestionably. Light or Dark, she thought, power has something you cannot ignore.

“Yes, about nine years.” She confirms.  
“Well, there has been another offer,” says the Minister.

“Azkaban?” She says it so simply, as if it’s the nearby coffee shop. She says it as if she didn’t do everything to avoid it. As if it didn’t break her to pieces, not really, not permanently, not completely, not at all.

“Oh no, no. McGonagall waits for you in the other room.” He points to the small living room behind the wooden door and the first though to cross her mind is ‘Damn it, I thought I did the homework.’ Her mobster of a father didn’t raise her to be rude, so she knocks, then she enters. Hesitantly. She hasn’t spoken to the old cat in years.

“Miss Black.” Her voice has not changed, Bellatrix notes. It is still accusing as hell.  
“Professor.”  
“Please, take a seat.” It’s the mud-blood that speaks- the woman wonders what she’s doing there.

She drags a dark green chair- the only dark green chair in the entire room, because she isn’t a traitor to her house- up to the round table and makes herself comfortable. Her mind searches, but it cannot tell her anything about what they may want.

“What’s the meaning of this? Are you finally going to lock me up?” She questions, spiting the words as if she couldn’t care less about them.

“No. We, actually, we were thinking” the mud-blood stops. She takes a deep breath. “About you.” “Did you miss me?” She smiles. The golden girl adjusts her perfectly ironed shirt.

“We were considering offering you a teaching position in Hogwarts.” She says it all at once, as if it’s been burning her tongue.

“What exactly are you getting at?” She’s surprised and intrigued and her heart skips a beat but her tone is flat.

“Defence Against the Dark Arts,” informs the headmistress. “It is only suitable that you use your...skills and knowledge to better educate the new generation.”

“Would you rather remain in the dusty, dark basement of the Aurors’ Department?”

Granger, decides the woman, is absolutely infuriating, and this has nothing to do with her past as a Death Eater. Which she must address, she realises.

“And what about the obvious?” She questions.  
“What obvious?” Asks Granger.  
Bellatrix laughs.  
“Why, the dark mark tattooed in my left arm. I suppose it’s rather provoking.”

“Oh, that.” She dismisses it. “That won’t be much of a problem. We can talk about re-joining society and all, you know,” hand motion, “stuff. But it’s all about skill, really. The position remains jinxed, at least treated that way. Not many want to apply. You would be...good for the job.”

“Dear me, asking an ex-death-eater for help. Have you considered...I don’t know...literally anyone else. The lead guitarist of the Weird Sisters will do, and he’s deaf and mute and useless at duelling.”

Hermione Granger laughs. Properly laughs, before her hand shoots up to cover her mouth, before she catches herself.

“I was considering it for a while, actually.”

Now that, that Bellatrix did not expect. She didn’t see it coming, she didn’t even dream of it.

“Why? Has the war finally gotten to your head?”

The golden girl flinches at that, and the witch registers the flinch as one similar to her own. A sensitive subject, then. War and loss of sanity. She shan’t bring them up again.

“No,” the witch says stiffly.

“It’d be a waste of skills to lock you up somewhere.” McGonagall hasn’t spoken in five minutes, Bellatrix thinks it may be a first.

“Alright. Say that’s true. How will I even walk through the Castle?”

“That we will have to test. Dumbledore always said that if the building in itself lets you in, if its magic embraces you, then so will the students. It may take some time, but they will.”

Dumbledore.

That bastard.

Bellatrix nods.

She’s changed, peace has changed her, sure, she’s not gutting people for fun; but she doesn’t think Hogwarts will let her in its walls. Not in a million years.

“Even so, even if you are in such a desperate position, even if I somehow manage to step into the castle, without causing a student strike or something- even so, I have no teaching qualifications whatsoever, and honestly, why in heaven did you think I’d want anything to do with children- those poor excuses for-”

“You won’t be teaching alone.” McGonagall’s voice is firm.

“You’ll be with me. I teach Defence, and you’d be my colleague, of sorts,” says the mud-blood. Her hands press into one another and Bellatrix remembers it’s something she did as a child herself, when she was afraid, uncertain, the way her nails would leave marks upon her flesh.

There are long moments of silence. They pass slowly, quickly, then more slowly. She hears the sound of their breaths, she imagines the woman’s nails digging deep into her palm, she hears the ticking clock, the beat of her heart, that feels heavy as always but soon quiets down into a steady pace.

“Okay,” Bellatrix says, because she got worried about Granger’s palm beginning to bleed rather than anything else.


	2. Chapter 2

It’s a Tuesday, 31st of December when she arrives at Hogwarts. She hasn’t been there since the battle. An Auror and the mud-blood are accompanying her, step by step. Bellatrix watches her shoes dig into the fresh grass, the wet soil forming tiny mountains around the soles. A wildflower catches the hem of her dress and holds it for a moment. She walks on, and then someone opens the gates, slowly. She holds her breath without noticing, and the forces of magic surrounding the castle tremble, mixing with her skin, making the air suddenly cold; but they let her pass. It’s a relief.  
Bellatrix sits at the professor’s table and counts the pair of eyes that burn holes through her. Such great is the hatred that flickers through their gaze- in most cases she doesn’t dare to look at them. Only glances, briefly, before moving on. There’s a bunch of redheads at Gryffindor which must be of the Weasley family, then Hufflepuffs, a mixed bunch of no interest, and Ravenclaws- she recognises a few pureblood amongst the tables, which she can easily tell apart by the heavy sent of money and daddy issues. Finally, the Slytherins. She knows most of them, spotting relatives, dividing the families, categorising, recalling any information she may know.  
McGonagall tells everyone to be quiet, and then she tells them to sing a song, and Bellatrix mouths along but never actually says the lyrics, because, let’s face it, they’re absolutely ridiculous. Then she says she’d like to introduce them to the new Dark Arts professor, and so they say:  
“We already have a professor.”  
“Yes, but MissGranger cannot reach the very depths of the lesson.”  
“This isn’t Durmstrang! Why the hell have you hired a death-eater?”  
“Language, young man,” says the headmistress.  
Granger stands up and says:  
“Quiet, if you please. It was my own request to receive some help concerning DADA. Lady Black has taught in the Aurors’ Department for nine years, I am certain she is more than qualified.”  
Bellatrix thinks she wasn’t that composed when she tortured her on the floor of Malfoy Manor. She can recall the way she screamed.  
Oh, well.  
War changes people-  
And she has thought that before.  
Bellatrix doesn’t like repeating herself, not even in the solitude of her own head. She gets up.  
“I understand that you are all highly biased against me- and I will not deny anything, nor will I try to convince you that I am a better person. But as you know,” she holds up her hands and watches the bracelets shimmer in the candlelight, “my powers are limited. You are in no danger, especially not when the,” she catches herself in an eye-blink, “esteemed Professor Granger is with you.”  
She looks at the latter, and sees in her eyes that she knows all too well what she was about to call her. The word was not uttered, but it hangs around them, strange, flickering, like the castle’s magic.  
Speaking of the castle.  
She smiles with her newly re-formed teeth.  
“If you need any further proof, have the one right here: Hogwarts has let me in.”  
No-one claps, but they do murmur quite a lot. It spreads like fire amongst their black robes.  
The Slytherins make no comment whatsoever, except perhaps a few motions between the first- years. She can see them looking at each-other, though: coldly, sternly. A widely-built student fixes the green-and-silver badge of head-boy. He makes direct eye contact and he moves his head ever so slightly. Bellatrix nods in response. She knows exactly what’s going through the whole table’s mind, and it’s one damned word: reputation.  
She will heed their warning.  
The feast ends slowly. She looks at the time: it’s only eleven o’clock and she’s already thinking about her warm and comfortable bed. The witch tells herself she’s getting old.  
“We’re done,” announces Hermione.  
“Good.”  
“We have to talk, you know.”  
Bellatrix puts her fork down and considers the horrors of her past. “It’s eleven o’clock.”  
“What, over your bed-time?” The mud-blood has a lot of nerve.  
“We’re not all young and careless like you, my dear.”  
Hermione flinches at the word, and Bellatrix realises it’s unfamiliar, coming through her own lips. “I’m not careless,” says the golden girl.  
“Figure of speech,” the woman responds. She considers that it’s what most things are these days.  
There’s a great fuss as they leave the tables.  
“We better head to your room,” says Granger, and the older witch thinks it’s bold of her. But then again, she has been bolder. “Besides, I have to check for dark artefacts and whatnot.”

“Sure. Dungeons, I expect?” “Yes. You disapprove?” “No, not really.”  
A swarm of senior-year Gryffindors turns round the corner of a corridor, laughing loudly. Bellatrix pulls the other woman into a tapestry, almost instinctively, and covers her hand with her mouth so that she does not scream.  
“Hush, I’m no danger. Besides, it’s quicker that way.”  
She can feel the scent of the woman, and the quick beating of her heart. She smells of vanilla tea, old-fashioned butter-caramel candy and fresh parchment and blooming lavenders. Bellatrix thinks it’s silly of her to hold her for so long, unnecessary to wrap her hand around hers only to guide her down a secret passage. But then again, she’s always notices the scent of people. It is a minute later that she tears behind the third bronze knight in a long line of statues down the final staircase that leads to the dungeons.  
“I didn’t know about this one,” says Granger. “It’s a Slytherin one.”  
The young witch notices the snake carved on the knight’s blade, the torch that lights the stone stairs and the dark green glow that seems to spread through the old wall.  
“Yeah, I figured.”  
Bellatrix pushes a heavy door to the side, looking at the room around her. It’s alright. She has learnt to not care for the rooms- Azkaban tends to do that to people.  
“Is it okay?” She sounds like she cares.  
The dark witch rushes over to the window and opens it wide- and, what a thrill, there it is: the familiar water of the lake, rolling by, fish swimming by her curtain, deep dark waters swirling lively in the background of her life.  
“Yes.”  
She flings her hand and pulls out two chairs in dark green colours right next to a fireplace that is soon bursting with warm flames.  
“Anything to drink?”  
“Uh- no, no thank you. You really shouldn’t have drinks that late at night,” observes the witch. “Bad habits, MissGranger. They define us.”  
She pours a Jack Daniel’s number seven from a dusty bottle and makes herself comfortable. “Shall I start?”

Bellatrix remembers when she had violated the girl’s mind, the way that she thought, methodical, in lists, focusing on things and then on broad pictures and then returning onto singular motions.  
“Yes.”  
Hermione Jean Granger takes a deep breath and thinks maybe she should’ve had that drink, no- matter her parents, who would definitely disown her.  
“Alright, we must begin with some rules, okay? No grabbing me and shoving me in wall-tapestries without warning, no practicing of the dark arts, no slurs, no-”  
Bellatrix laughs loudly into her whiskey.  
“So you aren’t going to mention Malfoy Manor, then.”  
A beat.  
“There’s nothing to mention. Your alliances were different.”  
Bellatrix says “Uh-uh,” and then she shakes her head and drinks down the dark, orange liquid. “There is nothing to mention.”  
“Okay, Granger.”  
“I’m being totally truthful. I’m not holding anything against you.”  
“Alright.”  
“No, really, I have completely healed.”  
“I believe you.”  
The tension in the air could be cut with a knife, like the one she had, beautiful and sharp and decorated with diamonds. And she remembers the Dark Lord, a few years younger, when he wasn’t monster-like, and she remembers his breath at the back of her neck, and the way his hands clasped around her elbows and her arms every-time he came near to show her a spell with a difficult motion. She remembers the day he gifted her the dagger- she members the storm, the sea, the lights of Paris glisten in her eyes. The way he had produced it out of the pocket of his coat like an elegant card trick, the way he had smiled, the way he had said: “Why, it’s yours, my diamond-laced assassin.” And then she had cornered an enemy into the corner of a dimply lit street and she had dragged it against his throat as Voldemort watched. His eyes had been dark- but she had not noticed, and if she did, she had not minded.  
“MissBlack?”  
Her eyes flicker. The world is distorted against her empty glass. “Pardon me, I got distracted.”  
The soft hands of the golden girl have turned into fists, nails digging into the skin. Bellatrix reaches to grab her wrists, turning them around, gently spreading her fingers, watching the way

firelight casts long shadows over the deep, dark marks in her flesh. She whispers ‘episkey’ and the skin covers them up, expanding over them.  
“I used to do that a lot when I was a child,” she says. “How did you stop it?”  
“Well, there was a lot of pressure because it looked bad in social gatherings. Also, if you episkey it it doesn’t look natural against your palm, so it’s easier to notice you’re doing it.”  
“Smart,” the witch observes. “Hmm.”  
Silence settles in their shoulders and their hair like snowflakes.  
“No mentioning Malfoy Manor,” says Granger finally.  
“Okay.”  
“No attacking the children, verbally or physically, no favouring your own house- I think that’s all.” “Okay.”  
“Do you have any rules?”  
Bellatrix considers this. “No questions,” she says.  
“What?”  
“Don’t ask too many questions about me, or my life, or my past, or my family.” “As long as they don’t interfere with our lessons, I promise I won’t.”  
Bellatrix smiles. How professional.  
Her sleep is filled with dreams and ghosts- those passing through the walls and those inside her mind. In both cases; Hogwarts is haunted.


	3. Chapter 3

The first hour of class is not the apocalypse, contrary to what Bellatrix might have expected. The kids are still testing the waters. It’s Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, of course, so she tells herself that the storm will fall upon her later. Granger is nervous- that, she has noticed. She stutters over her words thrice, and her nails keep digging the flesh of her palm. The Ravenclaws stare a lot, the Hufflepuffs make no eye contact. It is almost amusing.

The dark witch remains in the corner of the class and only comes forth for demonstrations. “How could one prolong an Incendio?” Asks a girl in blue robes.

“You can’t, unless something actually catches fire. Incendio only lasts an instant,” Granger responds. “Any spell of prolonged fire is above your level.” The Ravenclaws stare, and Granger decides to include her in the conversation. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Partly,” Bellatrix says. “You can definitely work around that.”

Hermione raises an eyebrow and digs her nails deep in her palm. A wound will have surely opened up by now, thinks the woman.

“Elaborate?”

“With pleasure. You see, you may not be able to hold an Incendio, but there are many easy charms one can cast on wood. Thus, you can carry around a relatively infinite source of fire if only you master a simple spell on a tree branch,” she says. “But that doesn’t have much use, since Incendio can be casted instantly. Why, what do you want it for?” She realises the casual tone after she has said the words, and catches herself. “Ah, excuse me. I forgot.”

“As a necklace, actually. I heard it keeps away the boggarts,” says the Ravenclaw, who isn’t very smart, contrary to the house. Bellatrix reminds herself that perhaps the little girl isn’t DADA gifted and has some other extraordinary talent, and she shouldn’t roll her eyes. It is a hard temptation to resist.

“It doesn’t, actually,” begins Hermione in a patient tone, but another hand is raised. “When will we do a boggart lesson?” Asks a Hufflepuff.  
Granger says: “Sometime within these days.”

Bellatrix considers how many of her old friends she’s going to see. The whispers in her head overlap for a moment, and the fuzzy feeling of confusion and agony runs through her magic, clouding her eyes. She thinks of Him, as she often does in such instances. There is something steady about the memory of his presence.

“Professor? Professor Black?” She only turns at her last name. Titles that come with responsibilities are a hard thing to get used to.

“Professor Granger asked if you were alright.” She regards the student and wonders how life works, mysteriously, and before you even begin to realise it you’re in a classroom which once was a battlefield and all you believed in is dead and buried with vandalised graves.

“Perfectly fine, thank you,” she says. The bell rings in the sound of god-sent freedom, startling her. It will take her a long while to get used to this sudden sound.

“What was all that about?” Granger asks as they watch the last student leave the classroom. “What are you referring to?”  
“You completely zoned out, for a good three minutes.”  
“Ah,” she mumbles. “Sometimes, I do that.”

“Well, you can’t do that in class.”

Bellatrix thinks of twelve spells that could shut her up, of which only three are semi-legal. She waves her hand and the desks tidy up themselves, ink stains vanishing in thin air and chairs sliding back in neat positions. It is as if the lesson didn’t happen at all.

The windows open wide and the cold breeze creep in the room.

Bellatrix notices how pretty the brunette looks in the cool sunlight, like one of the living paintings hanging in the library of her old manor, with warm colours and figures that are beautiful, detailed, so one’s eye does not drag against any flaw.

“When is Hogsmeade?”

“In a week.”

“Am I allowed to go?”

“I don’t know, but I can’t see why you wouldn’t be. You’ve been on a good behaviour.”

Bellatrix thinks it’s funny how similar the tone of voice is, when good people address war criminals and naughty toddlers. “Where do you want to go, anyways?” She asks.

“On a walk, I suppose. It’s a pleasant little village, especially in winter-time. And Honeyukes. I have dearly missed fancy chocolate.”

“The big ones, with the shiny wrappers?” Hermione asks, because she forgets who she’s talking to.

“Top-self. Sugar-roses and patterns and everything. I used to spend most of my pocket money on them when I was a child.”

“I can’t imagine you being a small, carefree child,” Granger observes, and then she stops herself because the woman’s eyes have darkened dangerously.

“Well, I would never describe my childhood as carefree,” she whispers, the words drip from her lips like bitter poison. The golden girl tightens both her fists in a nervous movement.

“Honestly, I’ve never tried them, the chocolates, I mean,” she rambles, upset that the light tone of the conversation had stopped so abruptly.

“What?”

“They’re too expensive.”

“Oh my...You have to. They’re wonderful. I’ll make you a deal then, Miss Granger. If you ensure my attendance with the cat I’ll treat you to the fancy chocolates,” she says quickly and the younger woman thinks that she’s never seen her be charming and that not in a million years would she have believed it.

“I’ll accept your bribe,” she smiles, “and see what the headmistress has to say about it.”

They part for their free hour in a light spirit. Bellatrix takes secret paths to the dungeons, where she locks the door of her room and sits on the desk. She’s tired, although it’s early in the day, and she decides to grab her favourite glass pen and dip it into ink.

_“January fifth, 2009._

_My dearest Cissy,_

_I am well. The castle is as quiet at night as when you and I were here- which is comforting in a strange manner. Apart from the shuffling of the ghosts and the cracking of the old stone, I sleep undisturbed. It is lunch-time now so I shouldn’t talk of nighttime but I am sluggish and the thrill of the first day of classes has erased all hunger from my conscience- thus I returned to my chambers. The lesson was surprisingly alright, no hateful remarks were made._

_I am in the mood for a long letter but my mind is tired and troubled, so I will provide more details when the time comes. Granger is fine which was unexpected- then again, those golden girls are always sweet until they aren’t and usually they do not warn you about it. She’s been helpful enough about everything, even granting me a trip to Hogsmeade in the following week, where I shall buy some pretty office trinket so that I become supremely distracted all the time. It is the only responsible thing to do. Write me if you want anything, save candy, which I will have the decency to mail no matter your protests- out of mercy for Lucius, if nothing else._

_I wanted to write a sentimental letter before, but I am too old and have too much history. How are you? And the rest of the family, whether I like them or not? I miss you, I hope you know that, I miss you quite terribly, and I miss home, too- but Hogwarts has always managed to come close that, more than any other place in the whole wide world, in that inexplicable way it has. I feel like a castle within a castle, and I am peaceful enough._

_Your Loving sister, Bellatrix.”_


	4. Chapter 4

Bellatrix watches the old cupboard rattle, a hollow sound echoing all over. Granger had been considerate about the whole business, even implying that the excitement of the boggart will distract the Gryffindors from her presence. A spider crawls out and rushes to the nearest student, who performs the spell successfully, and then the line moves on. There’s a failed test, a screaming parent, a darkness that expands all over the room, a shadow whispering and a swarm of bees- and Bella is sitting in the far corner, watching the sea of red ties and robes come and go, and the spells echoing all around. Granger smiles encouragingly at a frail child, who sneezes loudly before cautiously staring at the boggart, which changes its many forms until it reaches a final decision.

The Dark Lord steps out of the smoke, black robe and white skin and snake-like nostrils. A cold aura rolls off his image- the child’s face has gone pale, he’s frozen in place, too weak to move. Bellatrix says “fuck,” really quietly. A Gryffindor next to her must’ve heard her, because it catches his attention and he steps away. He looks through the shaking child for a moment, and then around the room as if he’s suddenly interested in them all and then straight at her and says:

“Good Evening. I see we have sold out to the enemy.”

His eyes are too red, but it’s a child’s imagination, so she can’t blame anyone. The kid’s got the voice right, of course. Deep and deadly.

“I accepted no money at all- on the contrary, I donated some,” she says, because she’s always loved to play with fire. The boggart floats towards her, and the poor child who summoned it is seconds away from fainting. The children part so it can pass through, someone screams. Bellatrix smiles and tucks her hair behind her ear and looks at the dead dictator with her most convincing Dumbledore smile.

“Bella,” he says. She flinches. No-one has called her that since he died. The bright light of day seems to fade away, a wave of darkness and a sudden freezing wind rush over the room. The children scatter to the other side as Granger attempts to move, but she’s got her own demons to face.

“Yes?” She doesn’t say My Lord because she wants to fool everyone into thinking she has dignity. “What does it feel like to be a traitor?” It has become her own fear now, manifesting close to her

skin and her shaking breath. She sighs.

“Pleasant, to be frank. What does it feel like being dead?” It looks like him and she wants to say she’s sorry, but she catches herself. He was lovely and then he was terrible and now he’s only a fear. She has nothing to apologise for.

“Very deflective,” Voldemort observes. She had heard many of his observations. “So, how’s life?” She can feel Granger’s eyes burning holes in her chest- she has to finish this, and she has to fo it quickly. One child has began to properly cry, kneeling onto the hardwood floor.

“Empty,” she answers honestly, and then she raises her wand. “Riddickulus!” He explodes into a

million pieces and disappears in ash. Bellatrix’s heart is dancing wildly in her chest, so she leans back on the wall. The cold winds leave with him, the sunlight creeps into the room once more.

“Professor Black?” Says Granger, who is comforting the children. Bellatrix stares out of the window and tries to calm her rapid breaths.

“I’m going to get a glass of water, if you will excuse me,” she says. She rushes out of the classroom as if she has seen a ghost- because she has.

When the ex-death eater returns, the class has been dismissed and Granger is sitting on her chair like a popped-out balloon, the kind muggles decorate in parties and then watch slowly die because they don’t have the heart to break them. Her eyes are red in corners.

“Well, that was a disaster,” the older woman says. “I know, I know. It’s my fault,” Granger mumbles.

“That’s such nonsense. You had nothing to do with it. You could’ve known that’s be his worse fear, or that the boggart would turn onto me.”

“I should’ve predicted there’d be something to do with the war.”

“I told you, Granger. This was a bad idea.”

“McGon- the headmistress wants to have a word with you. And me. With us.”

“Oh dear, is the golden girl in trouble?” Bellatrix says, sarcastically enough to make the woman roll her eyes and alter her posture, her shoulders hanging lower than usual.

“I don’t know. I’m determined to make this work- well, I was, but I don’t know now.” Her nails dig inside her palms until they bleed.

“Ironically, we’re in one team here, Granger. You don’t want to fail and I don’t want to die- they’re kind of the same thing, in the end.”

There’s silence as she tugs her brown hair nervously. “I didn’t ask you- are you okay? You know...”

“Seeing him? I’m fine. It was only a shadow, right? Most of things tend to be these days.” Bellatrix shakes her head. “Are you?”

“Of course,” replies Granger, and the other woman knows it’s a lie. “So, should we get to the cat?”  
“Please don’t call her that,” smiles Hermione.  
“Well, no, not when she’s present.”

Bellatrix Black leans back in the chair of the headmistress and tries to pretend that she has places to be. The breeze cools the windows, those in the portraits don’t pretend to be half-asleep anymore, they have leaned forth in their big chairs and look at them with interest.

“What were you thinking?” Grunts the cat from her spot in the chair. Bellatrix wonders if she ever curls up there like a cat, during particularly tiring days.

“Headmistress, it was only a moment of carelessness.”

“Do you want to see the owls that will start flying in, professor Granger? I did not approve of this to begin this- I was right, too much trouble. I do not know why you insisted,” she says, shaking her head and turning to look at the portrait of the old man, hanging right behind the chair. He looks at them behind his half-moon spectacles.

“What does Bellatrix think?” He asks, and his voice has the edge of paint and magic in it.

“Albus, although I appreciate you asking for my opinion, I don’t have one. I only came here for self-serving reasons- but I do think, for one, that it was simply a miscalculations, and that such a situation can be avoided,” she says blankly, and McGonagall shakes her head and taps her fingers on the hard wood of the table. She had never understood why the headmaster and the death eater were on a first name basis, or why he had insisted she’d be perfect for the role. Sometimes she even scolds herself- but then again dead men make a lot of decisions for us, and there is no presence as firm as theirs in the world of the living. Ghosts, it seems, are not only the eccentric characters that haunt the halls of Hogwarts Castle.

It has grown dark outside, the late afternoon tastes of winter and storms to come. Clouds swing by the sky, careless as children in a playground, and the headmistress decides to be merciful, for the first and last time. When they shuffle out of her office and stumble down the staircases, they find themselves in a small balcony on the fifth floor, staring at a wondrous view. The night is cold, but it doesn’t push them away.

“Did you mean it?” Asks Hermione after a while. “Mean what?”  
“That life is empty.”

“Yeah, mudblood, I did,” says the woman, moving her hand to grab hers affectionately, thoughtfully dragging a long finger all over her knuckles. “We’ve all wasted so much time in these empty years.” Granger freezes in her place at the echo of the word that is carved in her flesh, she opens her mouth to say something but only a desperate gasp comes out. Strangely enough, she watches the way her dark brown eyes reflect the night sky- they’re so dark they become a mirror for the stars, the shimmer of the moon, like miniature versions of the great black lake. Their hands part as Bellatrix moves away, turning around and walking back into the shadow-filled corridors, her figure gleaming in the pale light.

Hermione stays, looking at the treetops of the forest and wondering why her heart has began to

beat faster than ever before- not fear, or anger, or even excitement- but a sense of violent expansion, like she’s bigger than the whole world, unaffected by words or motions. She saw those stars in the woman’s eyes and a mood like none she had ever experienced hangs about her, showering in a feeling of cold awareness, as if she’s only now awaking from a deep sleep. The word was a catalyst. It replays in her head, echoing, the different letters savoured, swirling in her tongue. She’s only ever said it in whispers or between tears, but that night she stands in the balcony, staring at the forest and the lake and her sky, and she says, steadily, abruptly, “Mudblood. Mudblood, mudblood.” Then, she realises: it holds no power anymore.


	5. Chapter 5

Nymphadora Lupin Tonks met her aunt on three separate occasions. Once, when she was a child, in a ridiculously overpriced ice cream shop with a lemon-scented tapestry. Her pocket money wasn’t enough for her order, and a dark-looking woman eyed her carefully, recognising the features they shared. She nodded to the man behind the counter, who bowed deeply as if she were some kind of fairy-tale queen, and then Tonks said;

“Thank you, lady,” and smiled widely, to which the woman responded, “Leave my sight, horrendous abomination.”  
“What is ‘ondous amine’atio,” questioned Tonks with sincere curiosity.

“Go ask your mother,” had been the prompt answer. The girl did just that. That day, her mother slapped her across the face, she learned three new curse words and a semi-legal spell, and then a part of her family history she did not understand until much later.

The second occasion, she was seventeen, walking into Borgin and Burke’s, because that shadow- covered alley near Diagon’s always captured her attention and that shop dominated so many of her fantasies when she was a child.

“What is it you desire?” Asked a skeleton hanging in a cupboard. “I don’t know,” she replied.

“I’ll take this,” a velvety voice echoed, sharply pronouncing the word ‘this.’ Nymphadora turned, fearing for her skeleton and her life, but the woman was pointing at a strange mechanical device that shined like a star. Their eyes met.

“You,” the girl whispered. The woman chuckled at that.

“Be quick with that, Borgin. I seem to be invading someone’s territory.” The mocking tone stayed in her mind for the years that followed.

The third time, in battle. A killing curse flew next to her neck. Later, she told her mother;

“I am sorry. Now I understand why you never spoke of her. I didn’t want to believe I was related to someone like that, but now I know. She tried to kill me, she didn’t bat an eyelid. She is a terrible person.” And the brown-haired twin shook her head at that.

“Don’t fool yourself. Bellatrix doesn’t miss unless she wants to.”

Now, she marks a fourth time, in Hermione’s office at Hogwarts.

“Come in,” says Hermione, and when she pokes her head through the door she sees that face that is familiar yet haunting, beautiful features and something distinct, an allure her mother never had.

“Am I interrupting?”

“No,” says Bellatrix. “I was just leaving.” She stands up and Tonks holds the door open for her and watches her as she leaves, walking amidst the corridors of the great castle.

“Funny thing,” says Tonks, changing her hair to baby blue, “the first time I met this woman was at an ice cream shop, the last time I think she tried to kill me- though my mother disagrees. And now, Hogwarts. She’s everywhere. I’ve seen Rita Skeeter in more reasonable places than that.” She takes a seat in front of Hermione, who laughs kindly.

“She’s strange. Stranger than strange.” “Eccentric,” offers Tonks.

“Eccentric doesn’t even begin to cover it.” Hermione has always been intrigued with the great, cathedral space hidden inside the minds of other people, those sacred churches that she could not enter- sometimes she stares around at crowds and wonders what passes in that shadow protected by skull and flesh and blood- how strange it seems, how unreal. If she told herself, in another life, in another world, she would not have believed it.

“Lupin sent me, to see if you are okay,” she mumbles. “He doesn’t understand this whole expedition. And my dear mother was burring up with curiosity, though she did not show it- had that cold face mothers do, you know, as if they don’t want to control your life.” Hermione chuckles.  
She solved that problem long ago; an obliteration of memories. Still hasn’t gotten around to lifting it- her friend doesn’t know, they think she has, she keeps her secrets and her covers and her tears: in bottles, and vials of filters. She doesn’t know what to say, that is all. To her parents, if she lifts the spell, she cannot tell them, they don’t belong anymore, in this world or this life- everything is too complicated, too strange, too far away; they know nothing, even about their own hearts.

“I’m okay, Tonks,” she says. “I’m perfectly fine. She’s fine, too. At least the kids pay attention to her, you know. And she knows things- the kind you can’t be taught.”

“Right.”  
“Right. Tell them not to worry.” There is silence. Granger thinks all this could have been a letter. “Er...I will. Tell them, I mean. Not to worry.” The roots of Tonks’ hair are turning dark blue.

“Right,” she repeats. “Is there anything else... I mean, how are you doing?” She wonders how many years she’s wasted to conversations whose only use is to fill the time as it stretches, empty, empty, empty, across the days.

“Oh, well, the usual, you know. Lupin, he’s a good dad, loads of work- I’m fine. I’m great.” Lonely, then. Hermione nods.

“That’s good to hear,” she says. She almost wishes Bellatrix interrupts this wreck.  
“Yeah.” The blue strands are expanding. Tonks’ breath is hard, her eyes are searching the office. “Tonks, I hope you’ll forgive me for asking but, and I don’t mean to be rude- why are you here?”

“Oh.” The last indication of baby blue dissolves. Her hair is dark now, like a storm. “I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about you these days, more and more. You’ve stuck in my mind.” Hermione notices small freckles appearing around her nose, which is noticeably smaller than usual. The freckles are somewhat distracting, they pop up like miniature islands, here and there. Tonks takes a

nervous breath. “I was wondering if you wanted to go out with me,” she says finally. “I don’t really understand-”

“Oh- no- you aren’t? I thought you would be. Separating with Ron so inexplicably, and not any boyfriends, you know- ever- or am I too old? Oh, I am terribly sorry. I wouldn’t want to spoil the family dinners.” Tonks spits out the last words. It dawns on Hermione.

“I see what you mean,” she says. She tries to keep her voice steady. “I’m not really- interested- in anyone, you know. I think I should focus on my work- I’ve never been that interested in anything like that- relationships even, not, uh, women, I think you understand. Is- is something wrong with Lupin? Is everything okay with you two?”

“Oh, no, don’t you worry, everything is fine,” she shoots up from her chair. “I’m fine. Don’t mention this to anyone- I should go, yes, I should probably go.” Nymphadora exits the room and rushes down the corridor, leaving Home castle and running along the stream of sunlight along the great lake, following that path until the place where the magic hold no more, where she can vanish with a loud noise inside the air and be elsewhere, away from the feeling that her heart is sinking.

Hermione Granger sits back at her chair and bursts with words. They are so many, trapped inside her lips. She doesn’t know who she can talk to about this; Ginny is too close to the family, and Luna is in her own world, and Harry is too troubled already, and certainly not Ron, and not any of the other Weasleys, and McGonagall is Headmistress, and her parents have no memory of her, and she doesn’t have many friends- sure, she has friends , but they became people she fought with, and that added something heavy. The dark-haired witch walks in, without knocking.

“What happened to you?” She says abruptly. Hermione tidies up herself, pointlessly crosses and un-crosses her legs and ruffles the pencils on her office.

“I’ve just had one of the weirdest conversations of my whole life.” Bellatrix pulls up the chair Tonks just abandoned and transfigures it into a large, dark green throne. She eats the space around her. “Do tell,” she says. “I’ve got time, and I’m bored.”

“No, no, it’s personal,” Hermione says stiffly.

“Oh, come on. Nothing’s personal if you’re bored enough.”

“I’m not- well, only because there’s no-one else to talk to here.”

“Okay,” Bellatrix shrugs.

“Well, Tonks walked in, you saw that of course, she was blabbing in general, which she could’ve written in a letter, so I- anyway, she asked to go out with me.”

“Hm, not my type but I don’t see a problem,” Bellatrix says, like a person who just saw many problems. She takes out a fancy tin box of cinnamon biscuits and begins munching one.

“You don’t see a problem!? That’d be cheating, you know.” She shakes her head in disbelief. “On her husband. She has a kid with him, he’s little, he’s called Teddy. Yes. Asking me out by itself is absolutely...Immoral. Awful. That’s...that. Cheating. She’s married.”

“It happens,” Bellatrix says dryly.

“And anyway, I’m not interested.” “In women?”

“Ye- well, in Tonks. I don’t know about women.” She looks at Bellatrix as if she’s wondering, dragging her eyes across her form, trying to decide at that moment, catch the slippery substance of attraction in her hand and consider it.

“Nobody knows about women,” replies the witch. She shakes her tin box. “Biscuit?”

“No thank you- I don’t know, I’ve never really thought about it. Well, I have thought about it- you’re not the person to talk to about this,” Hermione concludes.

“On the contrary. Why do you think I married Rodolphus? The poor man was always so in love with every blonde boy that came his way. I was his beard, as we said in the olden days,” she jokes. “And he was mine. We were the full facial hair experience.”

“You’re- you like women?” Asks Hermione, surprised. “Well obviously, darling. I thought it was noticeable.”

“No- it never crossed my mind. I always thought, I mean I always assumed, that you were in lo- with You-Know-Who.” She forgets she is now brave enough to say his name. Bellatrix stops fumbling with the biscuits. Her gaze turns hard, her eyes become grey- no iris, no centre, no line: shark eyes; unreadable. Emotion does not pass through them, not a single flicker of it.

“My relationship with the Dark Lord does not concern you, Granger.” She says it like she says the slur. It is the first time, Hermione realises, that she does not enjoy hearing her name being said in the more and more familiar tone of velvet. She breathes danger.

“You’re right- sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

Bellatrix feels if only for a moment, the way his hands touched hers, travelling up to her shoulder, stealing the skin of her back, her hair, playing with her body in seconds of warmth- secret affection he hid even from himself. The way he walked near her. The way he looked at her n battle. The way the secrets we keep from ourselves are the deadliest. Bellatrix sighs. She remembers when he tortured her. She shakes her head. It’s true, isn’t it, she thinks. We really can’t libel the dead. It is mildly annoying.

“But...I don’t know what to do now,” Granger says very quietly. There is a long moment of silence.

“Keep your mouth shut, for one. Pretend nothing happened,” she advises finally.  
“I can’t pretend nothing happened!” The woman stresses. Bellatrix tosses a biscuit into her mouth. “Better than you know,” she claims.

Hermione observes the way she alters space around her to seem comfortable, that strange energy that hangs about, indicating something below the surface that threatens to make her feel something.

There is a vibrant shade, as if Bellatrix’s very presence makes the colours of the armchair and the walls swoon grow bolder, the objects gigantic. There is a dream-like quality in the manner she moves as if she knows constantly that she is being watched and has carefully structured the tiniest motions into a show that fixates one’s eyes- a theatrical quality, some punctuation in her words that is impossible to ignore, something enchanting.

She catches herself being intrigued. It is happening more and more often these days, when she sits peacefully and observes her mind, the way her thoughts jump from this topic to the other, knitting patterns amongst all the things that trouble her- common ground in the new presence. Fresh air. She recalls her scent, though she can smell it if sh tries- the office seems to have shrunk into a thin line, trembling there until it disappears. It dawns on the young witch that is she so desired she could stretch out her hand and grasp the woman’s palm- there is a sudden hunger to do so.

“What flavour are the biscuits?” Hermione asks. The woman opposite her takes one out of the box and moves to meet her hand. They let their fingers touch for a moment, the electric sensation of skin, like a ghost of affection.

“Cinnamon.” She lays back onto the chair, and her fingers disappear under her other hand, as if by instinct, or to protect the glowing place where Hermione had touched her from the harsh air. The golden girl bites a piece of a dark coloured biscuit and sure enough, as if to convince her of reality, the rich taste of cinnamon fills her mouth. She smiles. Cinnamon holds a place of nostalgia.

“Any good?”  
“Oh, yes. Absolutely.” It is only later that Hermione thinks she might have answered too quickly.


	6. Chapter 6

Almost a week has passed, the castle has began growing on her again, attaching itself to her soul like it did when she was a schoolgirl. Bellatrix eats her pancakes at the teacher’s breakfast table. Bellatrix has a theory. It goes: When one spends some time in Hogwarts, harming it becomes impossible. It was several years after graduation that she could see its faults, and a long stay in Azkaban and descend into darkness before she could attack it on the night of the battle. When Dumbledore fell from the Astronomy Tower she thought to destroy it, (a reasonable action, she supposed), but then she didn’t, because the stars held the names of her family and she enjoyed to sit there on summer nights when she was a girl. Summer nights, she decides as she adds more blueberries to her pancake, never hold any indication that time has passed. Summer nights are always that one summer night.

It’s three days to Hogsmeade. She feels strange, her brain turns distantly familiar when it goes through the motions of her teenage years: countdown to Hogsmeade, and never-ending lessons, and how loud those kids are, and oh, Mrs Pince is going to skin her alive for this stain on the hardback edition of Magical Potions and Mystical Arts in the Seventeenth Century: A Study On Druids. Her old anxieties are a nice touch to how things have changed, she feels as if her whole life has been a great leap inside nothingness- and now again she is worrying; about the papers that sit ungraded and Peeves and the old castle that has a heartbeat she always feels she should be able to hear. The screaming voices from Azkaban tug at the back of her hair; she had a vivid dream last night. She puts down her knife and fork. Her eyes graze the butter knife, the metal is cold against her palm- she does not grasp it or twist it, it is not a weapon anymore. The butter knife settles into the possibility of danger.

“You’ve barely eaten,” says Granger.

“I’m not hungry.” Pointless, she thinks. Pointless, pointless, pointless. Dead conversations to pass the deader time.

“We have Gryffindor and Slytherin today. You’ll need your energy.” Bellatrix nods at that, she pushes another piece of fluffy pancake inside her mouth. The sweet honey wraps around her tongue.

“I expected far more scandalous conversations at the teachers’ table,” she remarks.  
“Oh, me too,” Granger agrees. “Turns out they have been talking about students all along.”

“Unacceptable,” Bellatrix mumbles. Then, she clears her throat and lowers her voice. “Phryne’s haircut is a disaster. I saw her in the corridor yesterday.”

“Well, I wouldn’t worry about that too much. Haircut or not, she’s top of her class. Earns Slytherin a criminal amount of points, if you ask me.”

“Are you accusing me of favouritism?” Bellatrix comically widens her eyes.  
“I would never,” Hermione jokes. She sips on her tea. “So... how bad is the haircut?” “Terrible. Awful. Horrible. It is...Just try not to stare,” she supplies.  
“Goodness. Alright, I’ll try not to.”

It is alarmingly difficult not to stare. Phryne’s haircut seems like a battlefield on fire, her friends have surrounded her carefully, creating some form of wall so that it is not noticeable, but it is. Granger can hear the disaster approaching in the form of the Gryffindor trouble-makers, who barge in and spot her, sitting at the smallest corner of the class. The usual Slytherin bullies have some sort of enlightening realisation straight from God, because they do not comment on it, Bellatrix thinks.

“What the hell happened?”

“I see no difference.”

“Was it lice?” Someone asks. Laughter spreads like wildfire. A hex flies from the Slytherin table, someone creates a shield in a hurry, there is a fuss amongst the green-and-silver robes until some people are standing up, wands pointed. Hermione tries to say something, she tries to cast a protective shield but another hex flies, setting a desk on fire, the flames roar high, they do not care for anyone’s dignity.

“Did your death-eater parents teach you that?” Bellatrix feels the way the heavy words shatter on the ground and there is a second of deathly silence before the answer comes.

“Shut up, mudblood.” Chaos unfolds like a shiny red carpet. Hermione casts a protection spell but it is too late- they are already in arms, someone screams out that there is blood, a desk flies in the air and crashes in the corner. The Gryffindor prefect hangs upside down from the chandelier like an over-the-top Christmas decoration. A window breaks, a school bag flies out in the grounds; a strange, tired bird. Bellatrix mumbles a few words and the cuffs grow red, she can feel them burning in her skin. Hermione screams something. A great barrier slithers through, wrapping each student away, pushing them all to the corners of the room.

“Fifty points from Slytherin! Fifty points from Gryffindor!” Shouts Granger. She waves her hand in great dismay, the broken school desks repair themselves. “Look at the state of you!” She feels for a moment as if she is McGonagall but remembers that McGonagall would never find herself in such a situation. “Do you have any idea what could have happened to you?” Perhaps, with all the screaming and waving her hands around she is more like Trelawney. Oh, she thinks to herself, the old curse. One always ends up like one’s divination teacher.

Some noses are bleeding, some children are clutching their arms or ribs, some are still cursing under their breaths.

“This behaviour is- I am out of words-” She turns to Bellatrix. “Professor Black?” “Unacceptable?” Bellatrix is offering an adjective because she doesn’t know what else to do. “You’re one to talk!” Shouts a Gryffindor boy.

“Silence! Twenty points from Gryffindor,” says Hermione. Their lips seal in her broad wand motion. “Be quiet! I will accompany you to the nursery, your bags will be sent to your dormitories. Detention for everyone, for the next month- the list of things you’ll have to do shall arrive tomorrow. Prefects, please accompany the unwell students to the nursery, I will follow you shortly.” So much fuss for nothing, Bellatrix whispers to herself. There has always been that sensation, even in the most intense of moments- throughout her life, even with Him, the feeling of

emptiness swirling beneath all of the other feelings, something lurking inside her, shallow and void. The vividness of life grows unnecessary. She wishes she was elsewhere. She wishes she was in Hogsmeade.

“Granger?” The students leave.  
“Yes?” She is thinking something else, Bellatrix knows.

“You don’t have to do this. I can go. Back to the Ministry, or even Azkaban. Things like that do not work, they never have.”

“Don’t be silly,” Hermione is shaking her head. “They’ll settle down. And you’re too talented.”

“I was better with the Aurors,” she says. “We had an understanding.” Filch screams something no- one notices, and Hermione looks at the woman in strict seriousness.

“This is what you want to do with your life?”

“At least there was some duelling,” Bellatrix mumbles. “These lessons are nothing. I’m bored of books, Granger. You read and you read and you read and at some point you realise no author will ever understand you. And then school books, well, they’ve never even come close to anything at all.” She shakes her head and sighs.

“You didn’t duel, you deflected weak spells. When was the last time you actually let your magic free?” Bellatrix laughs at the question.

“You know that’s not up to me, Granger,” she says. The bracelets in her hands shine.

“What I’m saying is, this is much better than the Ministry and you know it. And we both know you wouldn’t go to Azkaban for the world.”

“You’re right,” she says. “I wouldn’t.”

“You came here for a reason,” Granger says. She is holding her hand, and she hasn’t realised it. Her fingers brush over soft skin. “I don’t care if it’s some secret you cannot share- but don’t give up on this. Hogwarts is a beautiful place. We are growing older. Hogwarts stands, and we pile up meanings to it. It wasn’t just a better offer. You came here for a reason. To be- to...to have something? To find something?” She shakes her messy, brown hair. “A soul, perhaps?” She jokes, she is nervous. Her words are off.

“Oh, I don’t need a soul,” smiles Bellatrix. “They are ten a penny.” And Granger drops her hand and leaves, rushing after the children.

The dark witch leans back on the desk, staring out of the windows at the sunlight and the castle grounds that expand to where the lake begins, glistening, infinite, blue. She thinks: A fight, a scream, a slur, another slur, a stream of blood, one more fight, an attempt for intimacy, a harsh exchange of words, a pretty girl, a past haunting her, an empty conversation, a deflection, a door banging as someone storms out of a room. Old, familiar things.

The cat says: “The ministry won’t allow this.” An hour has passed.

“We can handle this one backlash, but it is unacceptable, never to be repeated. Miss Granger, our understanding stems from your heroic past and trust in your judgement, the ministry is in debt to you, but this cannot continue,” says the scrawny ministry official.

“I believe one more attempt is necessary.” The dead man looks at them from his portrait.

“I believe there is knowledge to be extracted, I believe the limited presentation of magic harms the children,” says Granger, to no-one in particular.

“You will ruin this school. I’ll have to choice but to expel you.” McGonagall stops, fixes her glasses. “Fire you. I will fire you.”

“Until now, Lady Black could return to working with the Aurors if anything went wrong. In light of recent events, I believe we must urge her to cooperate. Return to the Auror Office, or stay here and join your friends in Azkaban at the first sign of trouble.” The Ministry official looks at her sternly- Bellatrix understands, they have taken a great risk, letting her teach there. After the war it always feels as if walking on glass. And she has done terrible things. And she never made the right choices. Not ever, not even a little bit. And she has done dark magic, and she has killed so many.

“Fine,” she says. “Fine. I will go to Azkaban if this doesn’t work out.” It is only after the moment has ended that she realises that was the strangest deal she’s ever made- and she’s made deals with the devil and with dying Gods and with old men who think they own the world.

“The dark lord appears as a boggart, and now a class fight,” McGonagall says, shaking her head, “Injured children! This is an outrage. This is your last shot- I don’t- I can’t think why I allowed this- I don’t know why you allowed this- why you ever thought it would be suitable.” Hermione doesn’t know if she’s talking to her or the portrait of the headmaster.

Three days to Hogsmeade when the class fight happened, and when they leave the cat’s office it is past midnight, so it is two days. They walk in the dark, silent corridors.

“Why the hell did you do that?” Says Granger. “I don’t know,” Bellatrix shrugs.

“Azkaban. You’ll go to Azkaban.” Bellatrix thinks it’s curious, how the name changes when spoken by people you have never been there. There is something unnecessary to the way they say it, as if they’re trying to imitate the emotion to no avail.

“I know, mudblood.”  
“You wouldn’t offer all this to a mudblood. Why did you do this?”

“Let’s say our previous conversation inspired me.” Hermione scoffs and turns to leave but the witch grabs her hand and pulls her backwards. “You owe me an explanation,” she says.

“Pardon?”  
“An explanation,” Bellatrix repeats. “Why did you bring me here in the first place?”

“You know that. We are trying to reform Azkaban, if not eliminate it. It is unfair and helps no-one, it only makes people angrier, crazier, dangerous to society.”

“Not me, not now. I’d die in there. Besides, that’s not my question.” She brushes dark curls out of her face. “Why did you get me out of the auror office?”

“Because I needed someone to help, I told you that.”

“No, that’s none-sense,” says Bellatrix. “I sacrificed a lot today. Tell me.” Hermione takes a deep breath. They stop in front of an open window, cool night air blows in their faces and a million stars hang over the grounds. Hogwarts, Bellatrix thinks. It is a word that means too much.

“Because...Because I want to try something. A new method of teaching, a new- I want to...God,” she shakes her head and wipes the sweat off her forehead. She is nervous, shaking. Bellatrix stands perfectly still, eyes piercing through the woman. She thinks, briefly, that even now when she hears the word “God,” He is the first man to appear in her mind. How strange he had seemed in those final years. How intense. The strange illusion plastered over his face, his features blurry as he leaned closer to her, whispered commands in her ears. How powerful. But now, he was gone. They were all gone. Hogwarts remained. Built on a rock, by the lake, Scottish hills and skies full of stars. And so much history, she thought. She had so much history with all these old places.

“What do you want?” She urges the woman to carry on.

“I want to integrate another kind of magic. Not dark, we are not Durmstrag. I want...grey magic. I want another choice. I want students that aren’t shuffled away from it, I want students that are informed, windless magic, raw magic. A better education, an understanding.” She is out of breath. Her back to the cold, cold wall, she pants and fights to fill her lungs with the night air. Bellatrix leans her head to the side. She considers this.

“Oh,” she says finally. “Oh, this makes sense.”

Outside, Hogwarts is beautiful. It is so beautiful. Things fall to place, the uncertainty between them dissolves. Granger is such a pretty woman, Bellatrix thinks. And she has such an interesting vision. Yes, she is suddenly interested. She places her hands on the windowsill and bows her head against the wind. She feels hot. The night expands to the treetops of the forbidden forest. She feels at home.


	7. Chapter 7

The next morning she wakes before the bells ring six times. It is still dark outside, she sees stripes of white light against the blue sky. Bellatrix tries to remember her dream but finds nothing there, an obscure fog has replaced all her recollections. The window creaks when she opens it wide and after a moment she sits down to write to her sister. The cold air rushes in while she tells her everything that has happened. She adds:

“I know you will fuss over my decision, call me reckless. But you are a fool to do that. I know you will try to be reasonable and understand me- I have my own motives, Cissy. And although you never talk about it I know that you feared me, avoided me, felt that I was dangerous and mad. I was. I am. You aren’t the kind of person who accepts the contradictions inside of me, you can’t see how my soul wants to burn- enemies, witches, forests, my own self. I’ve always wondered how you are like that, so calm and collected. I hope you are well, any-way, and have the good sense not to mistake my ramblings for lack of love; I have been in a strange, heavy mood, feeling like these old songs where the glamorous-looking women tilt their heads back and let their voices soar softly, waver and expand. But their lovers leave nonetheless.”

Then, she signs it, she folds it, she slides it in an envelope. It is white, smooth, vanilla scented. She wonders when in the godforsaken hell she became the kind of person who uses scented envelopes. Sliding it across her desk, Bellatrix decides that she will post it when dawn comes around. She drinks a glass of cold water and thinks of Him. He would have hated the kind of person she’d become, he would have killed her, despised her. She doesn’t like the thought, she feels her eyes water and curls up in her office chair.

Yes, he wouldn’t have given a damn. He liked her dark and wild and untameable, not with ministry bracelets and lessons and favours to mudbloods, not risking Azkaban to please some pretty golden girl, not like this, never like this. She cries. She has disappointed him, even as a boggart he mocked her, his words were harsh and unforgivable. She cannot bear it. The glass of water is empty, the air has grown hot. Her mind untangles. The way he looked at her sometimes, the intensity of it. Burning red gaze, in battle, pressing her body on his when they fled, taking her to the most sacred of places, watching as the hollowed dead screamed out for oblivion. Her shoulders crouch, she is shaking helplessly and the blood is pumping in the back of her head and she can’t stop crying tears stream down her eyes and she wants to fall to her knees and curl up into something small and blue and unconscious. The years that have passed. When she was young, when she was his soldier, when she was his. It is useless to cry over a dead criminal, she scolds herself. It is impossible to breathe.

The late dawn finds her in the owlery posting her letter, she doesn’t notice the half open door that creaks or the hay that swirls. She doesn’t feel the eyes that are on her, her own eyes are still red around the sides, her skin feels stained from tears. The students will start walking soon, and she is such a fool to have gone out, and no-one can see her like this, a mad woman crying over her master who died, no, firmly now, she decides, she disappears in secret passages and makes her way to the

dungeons. Despite her doing her best to forget it, the complexity of life returns to her conscience. How tiring all the twists and turns get after a while.

“Is something wrong?” Asks Granger, because her God is merciless today. Bellatrix stares at her breakfast. A slice of bread, butter, strawberry jam on top, and then the plates with grapes and cheese and porridge and mugs with hot chocolate or tea.

“Why are you asking?” Bellatrix sounds tired as she slowly transforms her orange juice into red wine and begins swallowing it in large gulps.

“You seem a little off...I got worried and- is that wine?”

“No,” she answers dryly. “Of course not. How dare you make such accusations?” She refills her glass with wine and smiles. “Everything is fine. I just didn’t sleep well.”

“Oh, me neither. Nightmares, you know.” She gestures broadly.

“Aren’t you getting potions for that?” Granger shakes her head at the question.

“No, no. I don’t need potions.”

“Hm.” Bellatrix suspects she has failed to mention her nightmares to her miserable friend group.

“So, why can’t you sleep? Nightmares as well?” Bellatrix wonders when their relationship progressed to discussions about nightmares.

“Ghosts. They bother me.”

“Ghosts? Hogwarts ghosts?” No verbal reply comes, and for a long moment there is only the clattering of forks against plates. Then, Bellatrix quietly taps her fingers over her heart. The conversation lingers in the air without fading, lasting through the silence that follows it.

“I saw you in owlery this morning,” says Granger after a long while. Bellatrix’s lips press into a thin line.

“I didn’t see anyone.”

“You couldn’t, I was invisible. Didn’t want to run into any students. I was just leaving when I saw you. Just for a moment.” There is silence. Bellatrix empties her second glass of wine.

“I was sending a letter to my sister,” she says coldly.

“You seemed like you had been crying,” Hermione finally whispers. Her voice is so low it is almost drowned out by the loud conversations.

“Haven’t they warned you against watching people without them knowing? Mad people, no less.” The sound of students laughing, the sound of knives slicing though ham and bread and over butter, and the sound of someone slurping their pumpkin juice.

“I don’t think you’re mad,” Hermione says, so quietly this time that Bellatrix wonders if she really said anything at all.

“It doesn’t matter what you think.”

She is done with her breakfast, that is for certain. And the first hour of the day she has no classes, and she will go in one of the classrooms that are put of use and she will cry or maybe she will break everything to pieces or maybe she will sit in one of the desks, staring at the wall and tracing her fingers over the declarations of love that last forever, carved on wood. She steals a quick glance to the table of her house.

Green and silver over black robes, conversations, a shuffling of students. Something shines, coins emptied from one hand to another as papers are smuggled through black robes. The Slytherins hold their heads high and their moral standards low, she thinks to herself. She chuckles. She ought to report them, she knows. How vivid their lives are in school, the punishments, the house cups, the trip to Hogsmeade only a day away. How great all these are, consuming everything. But they do not matter, she knows.

“I think we should improve the spells that make sure the students write their own homework. They haven’t been re-cast since my days here, and I can personally assure you that they don’t work much,” she tells Granger.

“There are spells for that?”  
“Supposedly. But I broke them when I was a student and I am certain others are doing the same.”

“I wrote Harry and Ron’s assignments all the time and never had any difficulty with handing them in,” she says, tilting her head to the side.

“Oh, I know. In Slytherin we take turns writing the papers and then share them. Second years do the first years, third years do the second years, and so on.”

“Huh...that’s smart. Why aren’t the Gryffindors doing this?” Her eyes blur away into thought.

“It’s an old Slytherin tradition. Saves us a lot of time... which we wisely use to expand on our world domination plans.”

“I find that very easy to believe,” Hermione smiles. “You are right, though. I will see what spells need to be casted. I can already hear the points vanishing.” They laugh.

As the students leave the breakfast tables she taps her hand on the shoulder of the Slytherin head- boy, who is hurrying off.

“Hey! Prewett.” He spins around and furrows his brows. “Professor Black?”

“They’re tightening the spells around the copying of assignments. Careful, I don’t want the whole house sinking to the bottom.” He nods immediately, seeming overzealous.

“Of course, professor. I will tell the others at once.” He turns to leave, but she grabs his hand. “Wait.”

“Yes, professor?”

“You could pull it off as a study group. Mix up the years, it will be harder to trace.” He considers it, tilting his head to the side.

“We’ll talk a plan out, I’m sure. I’ll offer this suggestion.”

“Good.” Prewett stands there, his finger nervously touching his small, silver badge. The students are almost gone. “Well? You’re free to go.”

“Right... Right.” He vanishes in the last company of Slytherins that are passing by. Bellatrix watches him lean over to a tall, dark skinned girl. She nods. The news spread like invisible power.

The Fates are merciful, the lessons happen without any sort of controversy, quiet and quick, though the atmosphere is a bit harsh.

“Thank you,” says Granger in their third break.

“For what?”

“For backing me up with the Ministry. I can’t stop thinking about it- you did a very brave thing.”

“I’ve also done very terrible things.” There is silence. “And I’d advise you to stop thinking about my bravery and focus on working with the students. So far, it’s been only theory and class fights.”

“I know...I have a plan, though.”

“You better.” Unlike her, she’s got something to lose, Bellatrix thinks bitterly. It must be obvious in her eyes, the sentiment written in small lettering across their deep grey. She sees the light witch scoff. She’s got something to lose, too, she realises. But she doesn’t know what, and she want to learn.

Bellatrix thinks about the way after her father’s polite request the Dark Lord accompanied her to Malfoy Manor. She was a child then, about nine, and he was a handsome man she’d only seen around a few times. He held her hand, he smiled as they swirled through space. There was no sound in the apparition, she found it strange, noted it in her mind. He was a loud man when he wanted to be, but his magic was so silent and so cold. It became a bolder contrast, later.

“Miss Black, are you alright?” He had asked when they landed.

“Yes.” She was dizzy, so dizzy. He smiled and whispered something and she felt unknown magic go through her, relieve her of her headache. She came to know his magic, misses it even now, looking back, there was something comforting about all that power. So much of it, the power. So much that it became unnecessary. There were simply only so many things to do with it, and it would never run out, there was always more, more power, more darkness, more anger. The way he walked her through the garden of Malfoy Manor, and later, when she was older, and even during the war, when they both couldn’t sleep, and they walked together amongst dying flowers. He touched her, then, he held her hand one night and pulled her close and she could feel the pull of his magic, the way it was dangerous and destructive and-

“Bellatrix!” It takes her a while to see the empty classroom. “Yes?”

“You dozed off again. You can’t doze off like that! The children are gone, the bell rang a few minutes ago.” Granger moves her hands broadly as she speaks. There is only sunlight in the classroom. Sunlight, and two women.

“Yes,” she murmurs.  
“Are you paying attention? Professor Black?”

“Yes, yes. I am. I dozed off, you think I shouldn’t, the children are gone.” She yawns. “And the bell rang. What now?”

“You can’t just detach yourself completely whenever you feel like- detention.”  
“Pardon?”  
“Detention,” she repeats patiently. “We have detention. There was a class fight, remember?” “Oh.”

“I’m sorry, but this can’t go on. You doze off and then I manage to snap you back to reality only to find you acting strange as if you’ve been drugged. Is something wrong? Do you have some sort of paralysing memory? Does something trigger this? We should see to a psychological evaluation, both you and I, in fact it should be necessary of Hogwarts staff- I always thought that to be true.” The other woman doesn’t respond. Hermione takes a deep breath. “What are you thinking about when this occurs?” She asks carefully. There is a truth of concern in the soft brown of her eyes, there are drops of honey there, a flame of determination. Bellatrix raises her hand and taps the place over her heart again.

“My ghosts,” she says. “One in particular.” Her hand trails the pattern of the dark mark and Hermione feels a strange feeling creep up behind her, a breath runs down her shoulders.

“Him?” It takes all her strength to cover up the trembling of her voice. “Voldemort?” Bellatrix flinches at the sound of his name.

“Yes,” she says impatiently. “When is the detention?” Granger checks her watch.

“In ten minutes,” she says. She waves her wand around and watches as the classroom styles into order. “We should start walking, though it’s not too far away.”

“It’s not here?”  
“No, too big a classroom. It’s the small one next to muggle studies.” “That one’s always so cold,” Bellatrix comments.

“You’re right. But it’s been hot these days, hasn’t it?” She only laughs at Hermione’s comment. The weather remains a riveting topic, no matter what.

In detention, the children hang their shoulders and their faces and scribble onto papers. Hermione says they should discuss it, why they were so aggressive with each other.

“You know why,” says a Gryffindor girl. “The Slytherins betrayed us at the battle.”

“You weren’t at the battle,” Hermione says patiently. “And it was not a matter of house. There were many people who didn’t fight. Most Slytherins helped all the lower years leave safely, some were in the dungeons, helping the wounded, some were fighting...”

“My father says they were the first to leave. They were cowards.” “We were all too young to fight, anyway,” says a Slytherin boy.

“But you were bad, everyone knows so.” It is the Gryffindor girl. Hermione shakes her head, looking to Bellatrix for help.

“People aren’t separated in good and bad,” says the woman. “There are many complicated things that you don’t know and can’t understand. There is history, there are past mistakes and memories.”

“But you are bad,” insists the girl. Hermione opens her mouth to speak, but Bellatrix smiles.

“You are right about that. I had my reasons to be bad, you know. And I’ve had my own life. Too much of it; life, memories, people. I am not the safe example. But I am sure your parents did some things they regret during the war.” The children are silent, now, perfectly still. “And wars are complicated things. There are so many aspects to consider. It is not about forgiveness, it is about trying to find peace. Even a little of it.”

“My father is in St. Mungos,” whispers the girl. “He goes in once a month, and every-time he hears a loud noise he screams and tries to hide, or he attacks. And in his dreams he keeps asking for mercy.” Her eyes are filled with tears.

“So does my husband,” Bellatrix says carefully. “It doesn’t matter, you see, if you had been on the right side or not. The aftertaste of all this violence remains the same.”

“You handled everything back there,” Hermione notes three hours later. “Very good.” They walk, returning yo their rooms from the great hall, after dinner. Bellatrix hums in response.

“One day to Hogsmeade,” she says.

“I think the students are beginning to like you.”

“Are they?” Bellatrix leans on the wall and looks at the younger woman, who stops and smiles.

“Oh, yes. Certainly.”

“And what about you?”

“I think you’re interesting,” smiles the golden girl.

“Interesting?” The woman laughs. “Oh, Hermione.” She hold her hand and traces her finger over the scar that doesn’t fade, the word that is cut deep in her flesh.

“I’d like to know you better,” insists the brunette.

“Because I’m interesting?” Hermione feels her breath turn to liquid in her lungs as Bellatrix raises her hand and kisses the skin. Mudblood. She can feel the woman’s breath on it. “Yes, I suppose I am. Or, perhaps, you are wrong. Or lying.” She lets her hand fall and Hermione doesn’t know why she feels like she will float to the centre of the earth. “Perhaps,” Bellatrix says, “I am old and mad and boring, and the only interesting thing about me is my past.” Hermione looks at her for a long time. She takes all the seconds given to her, examines closely the grey eyes and the heavy lashes and the way her lips curve, the colour of her skin and her black curls, her neck and her dress, the way her breasts move when she breathes.

“No,” she says finally. “I am also interested in your future.”

Hermione doesn’t know why these strange moments keep happening. That night before she sleeps she thinks of the woman. She looked beautiful and challenging. That morning she had been crying, yet when talking to that angry broken girl, she knew what to say. She was aware of her crimes, the heaviness of them- and she kept making Hermione question the steadiness of her breath- yes, she thought, there was certainly some unknown feeling lurking in her heart, and she stared into the darkness of her ceiling and wondered whether she should enchant it with stars.

When Hermione was a child her father had gone to the planetarium and brought back stars from the gift shop, the kind one sticks to the ceiling, the kind that is bright in the dark. She should enchant the ceiling of her office. And Bellatrix was a bit beautiful, and certainly contained many multitudes and many personalities, and her parents still thought they never had a daughter. Oh, what a shame it was. This world, the next. One day to Hogsmeade. She smiled in the dark.


	8. Chapter 8

Bellatrix lays in bed with her eyes closed and thinks of the years before, when she had strolled with him through Hogsmeade. He wanted something, something to take, from the village and from her.

“Are you cold?” He didn’t usually insure about her health, but then again he always tended to be sentimental when searching for fragments of his old soul.

“No, my Lord.” It was cold. In fact, it was snowing.  
“I can transfigure you a coat,” he offered.  
“You are too generous, my Lord. But I am not cold. It is a fine winter night.”

“Did you enjoy coming here when you were a student?” He insisted upon a conversation. She sensed that same force then- that it was he who allowed her to breathe and controlled the beatings of her heart.

“I don’t recall. I enjoyed the candy, but there were too many teenagers here. All that commotion...there was always trouble to be found. When I was older I preferred to stay in the castle,” Bellatrix spoke. He grinned.

“We all did.” With a wave of his hand, he dismissed the memory of happiness. “I have a working theory that the older one gets the more one thinks of Hogwarts as nothing but a home. It loses all other qualities.”

“You are quite right, master.” She leaned her head to the side and considered him. She was quiet that night, he had noticed. He liked to talk to her when she was calm, but there was such a distinctive shade of red in his eyes when she killed for him.

“Bella.” Her name in his lips. Her name in his voice. Her name in his eyes. The name he said softly, just for her, his breath white like smoke in the night.

She stares at the ceiling, tears fall down the sides of her head, landing on the pillow.

“Bella.”

She replicates it inside her mind, permitting his voice to echo until she is dressed and heading to the dining room. She loved him. Perhaps she loves him still. The dead have a way of holding our hearts, she thinks, emotion simply cannot move on, it remains even as everything else changes and leaves. She will always love him in all the ways that she did when she knew him, in all ages, in all seasons.

“Professor Black,” Hermione greets her. “I believe you have promised me fancy chocolate.”

“You are in the right,” she smirks. It occurs to her that there is some new-found flirtation going on, or at least a slight change of spirits. He wouldn’t approve. Or he would enjoy it. He always

enjoyed it when she was his in plain sight, dancing with some other man, for instance, and bearing his mark on her hand and his kiss on her neck, his secret sin twirling there, in beautiful clothes and lavish ballrooms.

But she is not his anymore, not in a physical sense, time moved on and she has to look after the people who carry on living. How thrilling, the bitter memory of his violent affections. Hogsmeade, she reminds herself. The children, lining up. Hogsmeade. The escape within the escape.

“Enjoy your time off,” says the cat.

“Headmistress, I take it that I am still allowed to attend?” There is the usual strict coldness in the old woman's eyes.

“Yes. Accompanied by Professor Granger, of course.”  
“Of course.” She bows her head ever so slightly. Granger sighs.

“Oh, I need this Hogsmeade trip.” McGonagall seems to soften up at that and shuffles them off quickly, sparing them a tight smile.

At Hogsmeade, Hermione opens up a little. She laughs more often and, after making sure no students are running off, even suggests exploring the various shops.

“Oh, it’s beautiful,” Bellatrix announces half an hour later. The pen stands in the centre of a polished table and seems heavy as if made entirely from marble. It is dark, dark green. “And it’s two thousand galleons! It better be able to write some masterpiece."

“Maybe it's enchanted to insert Oscar Wilde quotes into everything you write,” Hermione laughs loudly.

"Oh, yes. And make it look natural- now, that would be a true challenge," Bellatrix says.

“Why do you know Oscar Wilde? He was a muggle.” Hermione's voice changes into something defensive.

“When you are past a certain point of fabulous in the legend scale, magic becomes irrelevant,” she says lightly.

“Ah.” They laugh again. Hermione admires the way her laugh has changed. It isn't dangerous or mad. She is beautiful; her teeth aren't rotten and her skin is smooth and her eyes smile and sparkle. It is a strange sensation.

“Oh, I must have it now,” says Bellatrix. “For Oscar Wilde.”  
“Two thousand galleons,” Hermione reminds her, but the woman only chuckles.  
“Didn’t you break into one my vaults?” The heaviness of the conversation swirls through the air.

“Yes...”

“Well, then.” They leave the shop carrying the pen in a small, velvet case. Hermione feels a tug at the back of her heart, something is trying to break out of its blood-soaked confines.

It is almost nine hours later that the children leave, going back to the castle. Some of the professors decide to stay out- it is Sunday the next day, they can do some drinking and talk about their lives. The two women stay as well.

Hermione doesn’t stop thinking about the way they talked for the whole day through, the way she was beautiful, so beautiful. Maybe she has a crush on her, she thinks. But that is ridiculous and immoral. It is unforgivable. She shakes her head, she drinks the firewhiskey Flitwick offers her. It must mean something, that she has returned to teach here, that she wants to expand the dark arts curriculum, that she brought a death eater in. There must be something underlining her decisions, something wrong with her. The war got to her after all, chewing and spitting the insides of her mind until she couldn’t handle it.

They drink, the teachers talk of their lives. Bellatrix thinks she is so far away from them, she feels the usual wave of loneliness crash over her, the divide between her and other people growing large and dark and terrible. She never felt it with him, she thinks. Not even when he was immortal- the silver expanse of forever couldn’t make him cease to understand her. Hermione taps her shoulder.

“You’re slumbering away again. And I still haven’t gotten my chocolates.” It is gentle, the dark witch thinks. It is more gentle than she has a right to expect, a hidden concern veiled behind some slight amusement at the way life folds into itself. Not much has happened, despite everything. She is drinking, she feels alone, someone is asking for chocolate. She smiles, her high spirits returning without an invitation.

“Yes,” she says. “If we hurry we’ll just make it in time.” It is not too late.

They burst through the door and Bellatrix points at the purple and pink and blue boxes at the top of the self. The young boy who sits at the counter conjures them with a flick of his wand, pushes his glasses up his nose and says, in the most indifferent manner possible,

“Nine-hundred galleons.”

“Oh, that’s ridiculous.”

“You should see my sisters when they were out of pocket money and had to come to ask me for it,” Bellatrix says. “And they rarely admitted to wanting chocolate. They went about inventing all sorts of ludicrous situations.” Hermione laughs, shaking her head, and Bellatrix realises that she enjoys making her laugh. She pays. She produces a rectangle sort of box from the bag and offers it to her.

“Thank you, thank you. Let’s see if they’re worth their money.” She’s tipsy, they both are. The chocolate tastes of liquor and wintertime and something warm and light.

“Oh, this reminds me of things,” says Bellatrix slowly.

“It’s good. It’s really good.” She reaches for another one. “That’s kind of the point.”

“I like it.” Hermione shuffles around in her bag until she pulls out a bottle of wine, shaking it around in a decisive manner.

“Well, look at you, miss golden girl,” Bellatrix mocks, tossing another piece into her mouth.

“I’m not a golden girl.” As if to prove her point, she tips the glass and takes a long swig. Bellatrix watches the way her head leans backwards, the way her eyes are shut beneath the dark sky, the way her neck is exposed, the soft skin there, begging to be kissed. It’s been a while since she’s desired someone. What a curious sensation, distantly familiar, the desire, in her youth and in the present moment, unchangeable in its core, although it used to be coated by expectations, and madness, and passion. Now, it stands alone, held back only by the weight of history.

“Won’t you have some?”

“I’d have never taken you for a drinker.”

“This isn’t about me,” Hermione smiles. The witch reaches out, licks the glass where her lips had been before drinking the red liquid. “But I don’t often drink, you’re right. It is just...these days.”

“Yes,” Bellatrix hums, returning the bottle. “These days?”

“These days. Magic, the war, the life after it. I haven’t quite found a purpose yet.” They are walking, Bellatrix realises, towards the old place where the children play, the swings and the visions of something missing.

“But you want to teach, don’t you? Expanding magic, all that.” “It’s an idea.”  
“It is an idea.”

“Don’t you like it, Bellatrix?” The good old drowsy feeling has returned. It is not alone. There is that pink, pulsating shade, the way the world seems vivid but detached, the maddening desire to feel everything at once. Wine, trailing down her throat. Hermione thinks she may be overdoing it, she doesn’t have a reason to get drunk- not a single reason, other than all that has happened. And it has been a lot. Too much, some would say. She ought to be a little mad by now.

“Of course I like it,” says the woman. She adds something, a sentence of explanation or praise, Hermione feels as if it is not enough. Nothing can ever be enough. They walk through the gates of the playground, step to step, almost falling. Nothing can ever be enough.

“Sorry,” the younger woman says, “I’ve almost drunk all the wine.” Hermione hopes she doesn’t notice her staring, because she could stare forever, and question herself again and again, if she truly did like women, if she would like to kiss her, for instance, and what if she found a positive answer in her heart, and then she’d have to admit it within herself that she’d like to kiss her- and that would be too bad indeed.

“Here.” Bellatrix refills it. The liquid travels upwards until it has filled all the empty space- Hermione briefly wishes that it could do the same with her heart. She drinks again.

“Thank you,” she says.

“Don’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I shouldn't be thanked. I have done too many things to be thanked for anything.”

“Oh, that’s nonsense. You aren’t atoning for anything. You just try to be on your best behaviour, lest the ministry decides you are crazy and should be kissed goodnight.”

“That’s true,” Bellatrix says, swallowing a considerable amount before returning the bottle.

“I’m a mean drunk, I’ve been told.” She waves her hand around and Bellatrix catches it, holding her palm, sliding her fingers across it.

“You aren’t a mean drunk,” she says. “You’re just angry.”

Hermione drinks and thinks about all the things that have happened to her. The war, the death of her friends, her own inadequacy. The hunt for Voldemort’s broken soul, the adrenaline, the way things build up, pilling on top of one another, adrenaline upon rage upon sadness upon anger upon fear- and there was no release, there was never a release, not one bit. She drinks half a bottle more, and there is no release from that, either. They’ll just go back to the castle afterwards and lay in their beds, maybe fuck themselves, maybe whisper in their pillows that it’s been a terrible life. And nothing will matter. Nothing at all.

“Hey, I’ve never told anyone, and I’d never think I could tell you- but do you want to know a secret?” Hermione asks suddenly. She’s been staring at her for a while, considering all the ways her face alters under the streetlight.

“Sure,” Bellatrix answers as steadily as she can manage. She swings back and forth.

“I always thought you looked pretty in the wanted posters.” Hermione slouches over the swing and her hair falls messy all over her face. They laugh. There must be something in the chocolate, the brunette suspects. There must be something invisible, commanding it all to happen.

Bellatrix drinks and thinks of her dead master and her betrayal and the way the other woman seems human. She didn’t think she was human when she was fighting. She didn’t think anyone was human, then, not even herself. She only moved, flashes of spells and colours in a reality that had faded away decades ago. She drinks to that. The present is on her mind, too. The threat of death, Azkaban and death, torture and death, death and death. She will rot, she will burn. She will cease. Maybe it is the climax. The bottle lays empty, abandoned.

“I thought you looked good in battle, too,” Bellatrix says finally. “What?” It is late. They must get back.  
“Nothing.”  
“But I heard something,” Hermione insists.

“It was nothing.” She’ll dream of her, she knows. She is certain, it that moment. It has almost been decided, the subtle way in which she has taken a liking to the other witch, despite the unaddressed complications of their relationship, the fragility of time expanding between madness and the end of the war. Past, present. Bellatrix is tired. No, she decides, there mustn't be any talk of it. The rules are still in place. And she will go to sleep and dream of daffodils or some other symbolic fragility. Yes, she smiles as they start walking away. That is what must be done.


	9. Chapter 9

Hermione wakes up to find a dark, green pen on her desk. The morning light rushes in, covering everything in its dim glory. She has no idea how the pen got there, and she is ready to burst into the dark witch’s chambers and demand an explanation as to how her security was breached when she realises that it was probably given to a house elf. She waves her wand and yawns, elevating a sphere of golden light to the top of the desk. Dragging her feet nearer, Hermione sinks in her favourite office armchair with a sigh. She needs to arrange her thoughts, and she needs a new armchair because this one grows too hot in the summertime. She wipes the sweat off her neck and waves her wand in long, circular motions until the last drawer of her office unlocks with a soft sound. There, lays an old, violet book that she hadn’t opened in years. Her childhood diary, though half the cream-coloured pages are empty. She’s been thinking about her mother lately. Her mother always insisted upon diaries but Hermione felt that they were too dangerous, and often disrupted the neat arrangement of her mind more than they helped it.

She brings the diary out, placing it on her desk, flicking to the most recent pages. It took more than twenty years to take her mother’s advice, but she finally did. Smiling to herself, Hermione turns her attention to the pen that lays without its velvet case, bearing only a black ribbon of some see- through fabric. She unties it and begins to write, wanting to see if all those galleons were worth anything at all. It appears to be a normal pen if only a bit heavy for her liking.

“Dear diary,” she begins. She hasn’t found a better way.

“I haven’t been sleeping well lately, I keep waking up entirely too early in the morning with no desire to start my day. Just as things have begun going my way, that is. The ministry is finally off my back- well, partly, and McGonagall seems fine, and the children have calmed down about Bellatrix. And Bellatrix...well. She gifted me a dark green pen. I don’t know why. I don’t know why she does anything. I wrote about her before, and the magical solution that my mother talked off has yet to dawn on me. We got drunk last night along with the other professors, but her and I walked to the old playground in Hogsmeade and I might have said that I thought her pretty when I was younger. I don’t recall her answering anything. I am worried, of course, about the whole deal. She is beautiful and suspiciously pleasant to be with. I don’t know how to feel, I want to touch her sometimes but that would be foolish; she was a violent person, an immoral person.”

She yelps as the pen glides out of her grasp and twirls in the air before landing, scribbling something in curvaceous handwriting, dragging out the tails of the letters. When it is done, it floats upwards, balancing above the paper. “But manners are more important than morals.”

Hermione laughs, shaking her head. A warm feeling expands inside her heart, she misses her now, she is taken over by an urge to see her at the breakfast table, to be in her company.

“Well,” she writes, “now I know what the pen is about. She must have enchanted it herself.”

Chuckling to herself, she sees the warm light of the sun appear from behind the Scottish mountains. She’ll be early to breakfast, she knows, but there can be no discussion of her staying in her room and moping about the sudden feelings in her heart. She will stroll about the corridors and eat a slice of apple pie or other and she’ll think about all the things that are on her mind and she’ll arrive at no conclusion.

Hermione throws over her cloak and washes her face. She transfigures the wilting flowers into pink and purple tulips before she leaves in hurried steps. With all her moving about the corridors and stopping to chat with Sir Nickolas, the time passes quickly. She wonders if Bellatrix wonders about at night and has lengthy conversations with the Bloody Baron and she finds the thought hilarious, especially since she knows that if anyone could stop to have lengthy conversations with the Bloody Baron it would be Bellatrix- and they would get along very well indeed. The children have begun wandering aimlessly, yawning and rubbing their eyes. It is Sunday, of course. They have nothing to do, most of them decide to sleep in anyways.

When she arrives at the great hall the woman missing from the teacher table. Hermione doesn’t want to admit it but she feels a sudden pain. She really wanted to see her. It was the only thing she’d been thinking about, that she would walk in the dining room and turn to the table and there, sitting, her black curls falling around her face, the usual look of old sadness in her eyes, chopping up bacon in small, pink pieces, and she would raise her eyes and see her. “Thank you for the pen,” Hermione would say. And then she’d think of something really clever to make her laugh and like her. Her thoughts froze inside her mind. She is behaving like a schoolchild with a desperate crush. God, that is unacceptable.

“Good morning, Hermione.” Speak of the devil, and she will appear.

“Thank you for the pen,” she says. The woman appears from behind her shoulder, grinning widely.

“Oh, it took me two hours to perfect the enchantment. But it was worth it. For you.”

“I- thank you. I liked it.” They begin walking, crossing the space over to the table.

“When did you realise?”

“Oh. Yes, it is hard to notice. I’d written a good three paragraphs before it wrote a sentence of its own.”

“Hm.”  
“Manners are more important than morals,” says Hermione with some hesitation. Bellatrix laughs. “I wonder what you’d been writing to get that .” The witch doesn’t answer.  
“It was thoughtful of you to make it. And funny. I laughed when I realised.”

“That was rather the point,” she replies. Hermione smirks. There is something puzzling about that woman, something evasive behind the bluntness- her natural curiosity is intrigued. They sit down at the kitchen table feeling as if something has changed between them, a silent recognition has occurred.

There are no classes. The slight comfort of a Sunday isn’t untainted by the dread of the Monday approaching, it can be pleasant but it is feared, the future is immediate. Bellatrix eats slowly and

strolls about the grounds afterwards. Hermione accompanies her at first but soon leaves, strolling off to Hagrid’s hut. She hasn’t visited him in a while, she says. Bellatrix feels lazy, the sun is hot and bright against the green Scottish hills, the lake is sparkling in the glory of midday. The bitter winds of winters that have passed are there, of course, memories of snow and fall and cold, but she feels as if they aren’t her primary focus. No, the summer will come, will pass. It cannot be helped. The students are laying all across the grass and around the lake, strolling around and laughing loudly. Even those that are alone sit beneath trees and regard the blue sky and enjoy the company of something collective. Bellatrix is sleepy. It is twelve if it isn’t half an hour past it. She yawns and hurries inside, avoiding a Hufflepuff who wants to talk about homework.

She takes the secret paths to her room and when she finally walks inside she finds herself breathing deeply. Her eyes travel instinctively to where the window is, and sure enough, the water of the lake is full of sunlight, powder blue, azure blue, and strings of dancing gold trail down to the end. She puts out the lights and yawns again and shuffles over to the bed. She didn’t sleep well in the night, she hasn’t slept well in over a week. It comes in waves, the single thought that swirls inside her mind until it becomes all the thoughts she ever had. She rolls around in the bed until she is finally comfortable, and her hair is arranged all around the pillow, finally out of her face. Her eyelids grow heavy and soon her breath slips into something deep and steady and uninterrupted.

She is walking upon old plinths. They are so old they have been polished and grown slippery, she sees them there, grey and white and darker still. A girl walks in front of her, younger by a few years, wearing a dress that is brown with blue flowers- she thinks it a strange pattern. Her legs are all exposed, and her arms, too. She walks up behind her, she feels the usual pull of desire, the white veil blocking it is lifted inside her dreams and she wraps her hands around the woman, feeling the curves of her breasts until she slides down, pulling her closer, leaning her head in the crook of her neck and kissing her. And the woman turns, looking all-too-familiar. “Hermione?” She does not reply. Her hands are still resting on her hips, she doesn’t want to pull away, she is startled as Hermione comes closer, pushing her knee between the woman’s legs and smirking. She is bold in her dreams. She wakes up with a gasp.

“Oh, dear,” she mumbles as her eyes adjust to the familiar space of her room. Why must such things happen? If she knew she’d dream this, she wouldn’t have slept at all. In the middle of the day, no less. Bellatrix stretches her hands. Psychology be damned, she has yet another secret to cover up. But she’s kept deadlier secrets- or that’s the difficulty, a silly secret, how can it be kept to oneself? And why do the dreams of midday always leave her so stranded? She sits up, pushing the covers away.

She will take a bath. It is the only thing she desires at the moment and she must do it at once. She is in a strange mood, the sort of mood one gets very late at night when one is alone, except the sun is high in the sky and the mood is not suitable- she scolds herself, for her past and for always thinking of him when undressing. It is quite strange, but stripping off the layers of her clothes she always considers the dark lord- no, not strange, unsuitable. Two unsuitable things. And Hermione; to her horror, as she undresses, she thinks of Hermione. Three unsuitable things. Her life breaks apart into pieces that cannot possibly fit- all the eras she has lived are entirely alone, they do not complement each other, they are broken and apart. Bellatrix walks in the bathroom, spells flying

off her fingertips, filling it with hot water and the scent of pretty gardens left to the manic anger of the seasons. All her life, she thinks. Beauty abandoned to what cannot be controlled. The madness inside her brain always made her eyes looked darker, heavier. It earned her a lot of compliments when she was young. Now, she earns nothing. She is too old for rewards. There is only an echo of pleasure.

Hermione looked desirable in her dream, of course. She shakes her head and damns her unconscious mind- now she will have to endure the doubt of her relationship creep in. Oh, everything is so dreadful. And life grows so predictable after a while, she mutters to herself as she sinks inside the bubbling water. Yes, it is predictable. But at the same time, she cannot stop it. Her mind has already begun swirling, her desire moves, falling like black tar all over her body- her reason goes against it with the greatest of forces but, at the time time, it is happening. Hermione Granger looked beautiful in her dream. She looks beautiful in real life, too. Ah, that is the problem. Real-life, spoiling everything with its loudness. Dreams are better. It is in their nature to be  
evasive. But real life, that is awful, that catches her off guard. It has no business running across her hands like some silver thread, suddenly growing vivid only to leave- isn’t it mean to be steady, at last? Isn’t she meant to only mourn for her old lover and think of Hogwarts? No, no. The dangerous chaos of a flirtation can’t follow her. The decisive pain of love isn’t welcome anyone. Bellatrix shakes her head. Love! What nonsense she’s thinking about again. Love never brought her any good. It was only a dream.


End file.
